What does it mean to work and create out of a sense of abundance rather than a sense of scarcity? The idea of an “abundance mindset” has become a bit of catch-phrase, I realize, but how does it play itself out in practical terms? The Habit Membership is an experiment in generosity and abundance. Here’s a story that shows what I mean…
A few years ago, when the folks at Rabbit Room Press were putting together The Lost Tales of Sir Galahad, they needed three or four stories to round out the collection, so I put out a call for stories among The Habit Membership.
The writers of The Habit started writing, then they started posting their stories in the membership forum, where they started giving one another helpful feedback and encouragement. That emboldened other writers in the group to write and post their own stories, and a virtuous cycle developed, of creativity and courage and excellence. About two dozen stories were posted and discussed and workshopped there in the membership forum.
To reiterate, the editors were only looking to fill three or four slots. So the writers of The Habit Membership found themselves in a situation that one could easily interpret as competitive. A cunning, strategic writer wouldn’t encourage fellow writers to write and submit their own stories. That is not a move calculated to improve one’s chances of getting one of the three or four slots. Actively helping those writers to improve their submissions to the same “competition” you’re submitting to? That’s not a strategic move either. But that’s exactly what happened. As the writers of the Habit Membership went back and forth, the stories got better and the writers got braver.
And here’s the remarkable thing: the editors of The Lost Tales of Sir Galahad made room for that excellence. In the end, Habit members didn’t just contribute three or four stories to the collection: THIRTEEN of their stories were selected, showering the Habit Membership in glory. It turned out that all that un-strategic generosity did improve the writers’ chances of getting selected.
I know it doesn’t usually work out that way. Most of the time, three or four slots are just three or four slots. In the publishing world, most work that exceeds the threshold of excellence still doesn’t get selected. Even in this situation, stories that were more than good enough didn’t get selected, for reasons that were entirely out of the writers’ control. And yet, thanks to the generosity and collegiality of the writers of the Habit Membership, all of the stories, whether they got selected or not, were better than they would have been. And many of them wouldn’t have existed at all if not for the encouragement of writerly colleagues.
Some of the best encouragement and most insightful feedback came from writers whose stories ended up not being selected. One of those writers, after congratulating her colleagues whose work was selected, had this to say to her colleagues whose work was not:
Well done being faithful to the hard work of writing. Just because it goes unseen (or less seen) doesn’t make it any less fruitful. Keep taking the risk of your own discovery.
I will be toasting ALL of you this week. A while back I promised [a colleague] I’d celebrate my writer’s courage with her regardless of the result. I am continually a better writer because of this membership. What a tremendous delight it is to share your company – to learn with, commiserate with, rejoice with, and persevere with.
Yes and amen. Salut!
